Applicable law Rome II Hungarian High Court
The articulated vehicle consisting of a tractor unit and a semi-trailer of a company registered in Hungary suffered a road traffic accident on 20 March 2012 on the motorway A5 in Germany. The tortfeasor was insured at a Spanish motor vehicle liability insurer. The tortfeasor admitted its liability. The injured party submitted its claim to the Hungarian claims representative of the foreign insurer. It was clear that the applicable substantive law is the German law under Article 4(1) of Regulation (EC) No 864/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 2007 on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations (hereinafter referred to as Rome II Regulation). The foreign insurer paid compensation to the injured party through the claims representative after having gathered the advice of the German partner of the claims representative. However, the vast majority of the storage costs, the costs of the vehicle hire and other costs were not paid by the foreign insurer.
The Hungarian injured party, i.e. the claimant filed a lawsuit in Hungary against the foreign insurer, i.e. the defendant which was represented by the Hungarian claims representative. The Hungarian court of first instance obliged the foreign insurer to pay compensation to the claimant on the basis of the German substantive law referring to Article 4(1) of Rome II Regulation. However, the court of first instance determined the interests for delay on the basis of the Hungarian substantive law since the claimant requested the amount of compensation in Hungarian Forint. The defendant lodged an appeal against the judgement of first instance requesting the court of second instance to change the judgement of first instance and to decrease the amount of compensation.
The court of second instance upheld the judgement of first instance substantially but corrected the court ruling on the interests for delay. The court of second instance was of the opinion that the Hungarian substantive law is applicable to the interests for delay in this case, but that the court of first instance applied wrong Hungarian legal provisions which were corrected by the court of second instance.
The defendant filed an application for legal review of the judgement of second instance to the Hungarian Supreme Court (i.e. the Curia of Hungary) requesting the Supreme Court to change the judgement of second instance and decrease the amount of compensation or to repeal the judgement of second instance and refer the case back to the court of second instance for adopting a new judgement.
The Hungarian Supreme Court ruled that the applicable law to the interests for delay has to be determined under Article 4(1) of Rome II Regulation – in connection with Article 15 (c) of Rome II Regulation – and therefore it is the German substantive law in this case. Consequently, the Supreme Court repealed the judgement of second instance and referred the case back to the court of first instance which court is obliged to pass a new judgement in such a manner that the applicable substantive law to the question of interests for delay is the German law and the court of first instance has to obtain information on the German provisions on interests for delay.
This case was published in the periodical “Kúriai Döntések” which contains edited judicial decisions. The number of the case is BH 2019. 270. The summary and the translation were made by Hungarian Attorney at Law and IETL Board member Dr. Tibor Pataky.
